healing the heart

A force of one, that’s what I used to think about myself in my earlier life. I had a rather romanticized vision of myself out there all alone on the cutting edge of life, paving the way for myself and those who would follow. Driven by the need to achieve my goals and look my fears in the eye face to face I bunkered down, weathered the storms, and plowed ahead-onwards and upwards to what I thought would be the achievement of my dreams. I had them, you know? Dreams, visions of sugar plumbs dancing in my head. I would be driving a twin turbo Porsche with a big Spanish style house in the mountains and somehow be famous. I wasn’t sure how, I just knew that I would some day.

Spiritual Revolution

Then, around 1999, the great spiritual awakening hit the world and I found my new place and my new destiny. I became immediately fascinated by everything spiritual, mystical, or metaphysical. It was a Pandora’s Box in the seemingly endless twists and turns that spiritual exploration could take. There was literally no end to the number of pathways and variations on themes that one could pursue. I delighted in spending my time at star bucks perusing all kinds of spiritual books, learning about different lines of thought, different types of techniques, and all manner of esoteric teachings. I eventually came to understand that the crux of the matter with spirituality was in this particular realm, that of the esoteric. This realm was the most sought after and yet the most fraught with potential pitfalls for the weak of mind or naive of spirit.

After some years of study I began to see that the greatest wisdom often came from these esoteric realms along with the greatest folly. One could literally begin to empower themselves and elevate their life to a new augmented status or quite the reverse, could begin to feel totally dis-empowered and lose all control over what they thought there life was supposed to be.

I began to see that there was an unmet need, a missing link in the genre of spirituality and self help. This missing piece of the puzzle presented itself to me as an empowered and tangible way of looking at spirituality. I noticed that after I read some books I would feel empowered and productive and begin taking some positive physical action steps to make my life better. Conversely, I noticed that after reading certain other books that I began to feel despondent, dis-empowered, and a little depressed.

So what was the difference?

I found the difference to be in the content and style of the writing. I further found that the more self important the writing appeared, in general, the less value it had a tendency to present. Many of these types of books had sentences that started with, “You will…” and “Allow yourself to….” In other words, they were projective statements that made assumptions about the reader; who they were, and what they wanted or needed in life. These types of books had a tendency to be completely projective and use highly sophisticated spiritual terms that had no real life day to day relevance.

It became clear why I felt the way I did after reading one of these books. I sat there at the coffee shop one day on a Tuesday late morning doing my usual routine. I had just excitedly finished reading half this book and yet, I wasn’t feeling very excited about my life. Strangely, I was feeling really good earlier that morning, even excited to get up and start my day. I pondered on it for a moment, wondering why there was such a powerful change in my mental/emotional state of being. What had happened from the time I woke up at 8am until the time that I had finished reading at around 1130am? Two revelations hit me at once: the first was that this was the first time that I had consciously caught the negative shift in my mental/emotional state of being. That one revelation was almost enough to get me really excited again. The next revelation was that it was as a result of reading the material in the book that I had in front of me. There was something about it that wasn’t giving me a good feeling; in fact it was giving me a bad feeling. And then I realized that it was because it was stating what was going to happen to me without giving me any idea as to how it was going to happen, why, or when. In other words the key component was a book that made big promises but gave you no structure through which to begin to effect change in your life. I became frustrated with many of these types of books and began to throw them away.

On the other hand I noticed that books which made no assumption about the reader, but simply provided ideas to implement and experiment with, gave me a much better feeling after reading them. In fact, I noticed that certain books had a tendency to put me in a better mood and cultivate more of a productive feeling within me. In other words, some books actually helped to create a feeling of empowerment that then helped me to create positive physical changes in my life. At the time in which I really discovered and nailed this down, it was a mini triumph of sorts. My life no longer needed to be an emotional and physical see-saw going up and down, with highs and lows, and feeling alternately empowered then depressed.

The New Me

At this stage in my existence I just knew that I was ready for a new and amazing life. I had discovered one of life’s greatest mysteries, the difference between productive and unproductive spiritual self help books! Who else knew the great secret? Surely this was not common knowledge and had many readers still baffled at the apparent inconsistencies between the different types of spiritual writers and their various books? Surely.

That’s when I decided it was time for me to write my first book which would later became Reality Creation 101. I was determined not to hide behind any facade of perfection, but rather to provide the reader with the delicate intersection between real life and spirituality, where the two meet at the interface of physical reality. I was going to give the readers tangible, applicable techniques and teachings that truly worked in effecting positive and lasting change. I was going to give the readers a starting point for their journey into spirituality. I was going to save the readers many valuable years by coming clean on who I was in real life before I had a chance to build a facade of inhuman perfection. And so I began writing from the stand point of my life and my own personal journey, leaving out little by including many of my greatest pitfalls as well as triumphs.

Something still missing

In 2008 my first book Reality Creation 101 was published. It started slow, mostly spreading by word of mouth. In enjoyed the double identity of a business owner and author for awhile. Things seemed to be going really well as I put in hours and hours of marketing my new book baby. I enjoyed receiving some rather large endorsements from NY Times #1 Best Selling authors and even received some requests from publicists of certain celebrities. I switched one brand new BMW for another and went shopping for beautiful new clothes on a regular basis. Life was good and I was going places!

Three years after the publication of my book and all was not well. Some of the teachings and readings and ways of being I had most definitely integrated into my consciousness. And some, I decided, must still be missing. I surmised that this must be so because my life was not yet the dream that I had envisioned for myself. In fact, you could say that it was yet far from it. In fact, I found myself in a space where I was challenged to pay my bills on time. I couldn’t believe it and I definitely did not want to return to my previous life of struggle and poverty consciousness. I began to panic as I watched everything I had worked so hard for begin to crumble around me. Not unlike quick sand, the harder I struggled it seemed that the quicker I sank. I meditated, visualized, did breath work, affirmations and everything else you could possible think of. But, nothing seemed to work. It was here, in this space of near desolation, that I began to feel my way to the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Alone and in the darkness of the shadows of my own psyche I struggled blindly along trying to vainly feel my way back towards empowerment. What was missing? Surely after years and years of work on myself I must be closer than I now appeared to some sort of self actualization? Surely I must be closer to living these lucid fantasies in which I envisioned myself driving around in hot cars and living the life of luxury. And yet, it eluded me. I fell into the rabbit hole now, even more deeply. I struggled to grab a hand hold on a vine or a root sticking out from the side of the tunnel, scrabbling at anything I could grasp onto as I plummeted into the depths below. My finger nails dirty from the effort to grab at the walls as the air whooshed by me and simultaneously seeing the light from the entrance to the hole gradually fading from site, as I fell deeper into my own darkness.

Facing Nonexistence

I was desperate at this point and completely unable to figure out how I went from driving the hottest BMW’s to barely being able to pay my rent. Theoretically I knew that I was capable of great things and great manifestations and generating great energy. I delved into my emotional release work and dared to look into the darkest corners of my own psyche. I forced myself to look the splintered aspects of my childhood right in the eye and not turn away. I looked into the darkest place where, beyond abandonment and loneliness, existed something that I had never dreamed of before. It was nonexistence looking back at me. The feeling that filled my Soul was one beyond that of total despair as I anguished over the prospect of having never been. The thought I am nothing began to echo within my consciousness and I knew that I was close to uncovering a great secret.

Beyond pain

I began to sense that there was something beyond all of the darkness and despair, something beckoning me, something urging me to continue my exploration into self. I carried on, looking at my own inner shadows as they attempted to flit away just out of site, hiding in the corners. They began to sense my persistence and building power of presence and so became elusive. To be seen and heard was to be integrated into oneness, thus robbing them of their identity in darkness. The shadows became deceptive, but I maintained my presence during these self administered sessions of emotional release and integration.

And then it happened, I suddenly became aware of the presence of someone or something else. There was something beckoning me that was beyond the darkness and the pain and the fear of nonexistence. Little cracks of light began to shine through like slivers of sun light filtering through a stain glass window in a church cathedral on a sunny afternoon. There was something there and it radiated warmth, security, happiness, and creativity.

I woke up one morning to the realization that I had been duped into thinking that I knew what spirituality was. I had the sudden epiphany that I had been trying to be spiritual instead of living a spiritual life. The light beyond was my own heart beckoning me back into its power of presence. My heart had been trying to talk to me, to guide me, and to help me create my greatest good. However, I had been so busy using all of my ‘spiritual’ techniques to create abundance and success for myself that I had forgotten to ask my heart what it wanted. And so I began asking, “What do you want dear Heart? What is it that you desire?” The answers came as intuitions, premonitions, phone calls from friends, and other interesting synchronicities that all conspired to get my life seemingly back on track.

Living through the Heart

I stepped into a new space, a space of trust, a space of love, a space of joy. My bitterness and impatience began to fade away and I found that there was a new-found sense of peace emerging from deep inside of me. It was subtle, but tangible as it began to permeate my life and my interactions through the people around me. The first and most startling realization was at how much of a jack ass I had become to some of the people around me. Was this who I had become? And yet, I was not punishing myself for it, but rather reeling in the revelation of awareness like a drunken man awakening the next morning to find an anonymous bedfellow asleep in his sheets.

I felt the utter senselessness of many of my daily thought processes and ways of being. I felt altered in ways that seemed obvious, and yet somehow weren’t. Strange things happened and new thoughts occurred. For instance, I changed one of my meal times to before my afternoon workout instead of after. It was bizarre because I didn’t even really think about it, I just did it. The result was that my workout went amazingly well! I didn’t have that flat stagnant feeling that I had been dealing with for literally years! I noticed that many of my little ‘preferences’ I had when working with people were absent. Instead of making my usual litany of requests (many of which were contrary to other people I was working along side), that I simply accepted the environment as it was. This little nugget conspired to add even more peace to my already growing sense of peacefulness that I was feeling more with every day.

Then an even stranger question popped up in my consciousness. It wasn’t, ”Who am I?” But rather, “Who do I want to be?” What an odd question, here I was searching for who I was and now I was posed with a different question entirely, “Who do I want to be?” Well, a famous multimillionaire of course, duh! And yet, I knew this question was more genuine and authentic in nature. It peaked my curiosity to begin an inner and outer exploration of who I wanted to be.

The first and obvious answer was, present. I want to be present. And just like that I realized that I was finally beginning to live the life that I had always wanted. The life I had always wanted was a peaceful existence of love, joy, and creativity. However, in order to actualize this I had to undergo the Revolution of the Heart. I had to quit trying to be it and start living it. I had to answer the call of my heart in order to be the change that I wanted to see.

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Shayne Traviss

Sometime's growth involves digging up the dirt and planting anew...
After over 20 years of marketing, promoting and producing others I've decided to open a new chapter in my life.
If you long to go higher, live a life 'all in' join me as I dive in deep sharing my life experiences, travels and inspirations for living a VividLife.

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About VividLife.me

Founded by Shayne Traviss formerly VividLife.me was an online resource for personal growth through over 10,000 blogs, audio conversations and videos, from thought leaders, best-selling authors and wellness experts from around the globe. VividLife.me provided engaging conversations on consciousness and human potential with Arianna Huffington, Jane Fonda and Alanis Morrissette, wisdom packed blogs from spiritual Icons Iyanla Vanzant and Ram Dass, Green Tips from David Suzuki’s Queen of Green, Advice from Award Winning Parenting and Relationships Experts, Recipes from Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw Chef’s and more… and reached and inspired over 3 million people around the globe.
However sometime's growth involves digging up the dirt and planting anew...
And after over 20 years of marketing, promoting and producing others Shayne Traviss decided to open a new chapter in his life.
If you long to go higher, live a life 'all in' join him as he dives in deep sharing his life experiences, travels and inspirations for living a VividLife.